Anna is on her way to the hospital where her brother has been sectioned when she falters, and in that pause her world splinters for the reader into a blazing display of memory and madness, of childhood security treasured and shattered, and of families blighted by psychological trauma - her brother's and that of her boyfriend's father, a Vietnam Vet. But, in Elina Hirvonen's skilful hands, the grimness is illuminated by firecracker insight and flashes of surprising beauty. And, above all, there is hope.